UFC 133's Jorge Rivera looks on the bright side of third fallout with Alessio Sakara

Jorge Rivera (19-8 MMA, 7-6 UFC) has made peace with the fact that he won’t be fighting Alessio Sakara – again.

Would he agree to try once more after three meetings have been scratched for one reason or another?

“I’ll fight whoever they ask, but it will be hard to get up for that fight again,” Rivera, who now fights Constantinos Philippou (7-2 MMA, 0-1 UFC) at UFC 133, today told MMAjunkie.com Radio (www.mmajunkie.com/radio).

The two meet on the main card of UFC 133, which takes place Aug. 6 at Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia.

Rivera said he was around two weeks out from the fight when he got the bad news about Sakara, whom he’d been scheduled to face at UFC 118 and UFC 122 before injuries to both of them scrapped those plans. They gave him two choices for a replacement: Philippou, or Philippou’s originally scheduled opponent, Rafael Natal.

Natal was a jiu-jitsu specialist, and Philippou liked the standup game from what Rivera could see. The choice was pretty easy.

“Luckily, he’s similar to Sakara in the fact that he’s a banger,” Rivera said. “He likes to stand and trade and fight. So it’s not too much of a difference in that aspect.”

What wasn’t a choice was withdrawing from the fight for a later booking. Following a loss to Michael Bisping – a meeting at UFC 127 that drew heavy controversy for Bisping’s blatantly illegal knee – Rivera, 39, openly contemplated retirement from a career that’s so far lasted a decade.

Even with this fight, those thoughts don’t seem too far away. He’s opening a gym in his hometown of Milford, Mass., that’s entirely his own after an earlier gym venture with a partner went south. The gym will have everything: MMA, yoga, ballroom dancing, Zumba, you name it. That’s going to take up a lot of time.

“I’ve got other things going on,” Rivera said. “I’m opening up a business, and later on I might not be able to put in the time and effort to do so. I’ve got to take it while I can.”

So win or lose, this could be the last time that fans see Jorge Rivera inside the octagon. But for the meantime, Rivera hopes to do what he likes to do best with Philippou – trade punches. Everything else is up for grabs.

MMAjunkie.com Radio broadcasts Monday-Friday at noon ET (9 a.m. PT) live from the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino’s Race & Sports Book. The show is hosted by Gorgeous George, MMAjunkie.com lead staff reporter John Morgan and producer Goze. For more information or to download past episodes, go to www.mmajunkie.com/radio.

The Latest

The man known for cranking submissions to the point of injury added eye-gouging to his repertoire. But is the controversy of Rousimar Palhares too essential to his bizarre, awful appeal for his employers to take any meaningful action against him?

Ronda Rousey’s statistical greatness has already ventured into uncharted territory – just six fights into her UFC career. Check out all the post-fight facts, including Rousey’s latest achievements, about UFC 190.